Students

Hawkes Learning teams up with students across the country to help those who are new to using Hawkes. Through this internship, ambassadors meet with their peers to provide one-on-one guidance to answer many Hawkes questions, such as how to register a license number, where to go to complete homework, how to create a practice test, and what tools are the most helpful to get a good grade. Below are a few of the bright and talented students we work with!

Kayla is a nursing major who studies at Bowie State University. She currently secured a 4.0 GPA for the first semester of her freshman year. She also enjoys music, mathematics, and intellectual conversations on current political issues. This devoted and ambitious individual hopes to gain an abundance of knowledge in the medical field so she can help others.

Adam is a sophomore at Virginia Tech and he is a double major in Accounting and Business Information Technology. His favorite class is Intermediate Accounting and he currently holds a 3.96 GPA. Adam’s main goal after graduating is to earn his CPA certification and work at a CPA firm in Norfolk, VA. Outside of class, Adam is a brother of the international business fraternity Sigma Omega Upsilon; he also enjoys volunteering with his friends over in Circle K International. Some of Adam’s hobbies include PC gaming, Hokie football, listening to classic rock and collecting antiques.

Lacy is a freshman at Potomac State College who is majoring in Elementary Education. She is planning on attending West Virginia University in the fall of 2019 and planning to graduate in the Spring of 2022. Her favorite class is Education Colloquium and she currently holds a 3.81 GPA. Outside of school, she is very involved in her hometown’s 4-H club where she enjoys helping the younger members, showing and caring for animals, and interacting with anyone who may have a question. After graduation, she hopes to find a job in an elementary school in her hometown as a kindergarten or first-grade teacher.

Kaitlin is a sophomore finance major at the University of Mississippi. Although she is very busy with her studies, demonstrated by her 3.8 GPA, Kaitlin is involved in many organizations throughout campus. Some of her favorites include Alpha Omicron Pi, Associated Student Body, Students Activities Association, and Reformed University Fellowship, and Ole Miss Diamond Girls. This semester she is really enjoying her Business Calculus class. Upon graduating, Kaitlin plans to attend graduate school and become an external business consultant.

The National Center for Education Statistics says today’s 17 million undergraduate students look a lot different than they have in the past. Almost 74% of undergrads are now considered “nontraditional,” meaning that they are financially independent from their parents, have a child or other dependent, are a single caregiver, lack a traditional high school diploma, delayed postsecondary enrollment, attend school part-time, or are employed full-time according to NPR¹. In fact, over 50% of students have at least two of these characteristics.

So, what does that mean in real terms? It means that about 50% of students are financially independent from their parents, 25% are caring for a child, 20% are least 30 years old, 25% take a year off before starting school, 47% go to school part-time at some point, 38% attend a two-year community college, and 44% have parents who never completed a bachelor’s degree.

Understanding and adapting education to fit students is crucial for their success. Alexandria Walton Radford, who heads up postsecondary education research at RTI International, says offering services like financial aid, advising or tutoring after-hours (instead of the typical 9 to 5), child care for student-parents, or extra parking for commuters are all things that can help address student concerns.

At Hawkes, our goal is to make learning more accessible to these busy, nontraditional students. We offer around-the-clock support so that students can easily contact us, even with their demanding schedules. The tools within our courseware—such as step-by-step tutorials, videos, and error-specific feedback—help students learn on their own terms. Students can log into their accounts on any desktop or tablet, and with a 99.96% uptime, our system can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Plus, we work hard to keep prices affordable and offer lifetime access to the courseware, meaning students can always log into their accounts, and software updates are free. Learn more about the Hawkes student experience here.

Do these demographics fit with what you see in your classroom? How are you adapting to the new “typical” college students to help them succeed? Leave us a comment below to let us know!

Hawkes Learning teams up with students across the country to help those who are new to using Hawkes. Through this internship, ambassadors meet with their peers to provide one-on-one guidance to answer many Hawkes questions, such as how to register a license number, where to go to complete homework, how to create a practice test, and what tools are the most helpful to get a good grade. Below are a few of the bright and talented students we work with!

Loredana attends Bowie State University and is part of the class of 2021. She is a nursing major with a current GPA of 3.34. Her favorite class so far is College Algebra. Loredana likes to participate in many on-campus activities such as sporting events and DJ Battle. She plans to be a travel nurse.

Lyza is a nursing major at Potomac State University who will graduate in spring 2022. Her favorite class is Nutrition, and she currently holds a 3.0 GPA. Outside of school, Lyza enjoys hanging out with friends and working at a nursing home. This caring, loving, and hardworking individual wants to earn her BSN in nursing and become a flight nurse after graduation.

Likhitais an Economics and Management double major at Clemson University, planning to graduate in the Fall of 2020. Her favorite class is Accounting, and she holds a 4.0 GPA. When she is not in class, she loves to dance and attend Clemson football games. She also holds leadership positions in several organizations across campus, including Indian Cultural Exchange, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and Management Student Advisory Board. After graduation, she wants to work in either finance or business analytics. Likhita would like to go to graduate school and get an MBA.

Ryan is a Business Information Technology and Accounting Double Major at the Virginia Tech who will graduate in the spring of 2021. His favorite class is Principles of Accounting and he has a 3.94 GPA. Outside of the classroom, Ryan enjoys running, playing intramural sports, and attending Hokie Football and Basketball Games. After graduation, Ryan hopes to begin a career as an FBI Forensic Accountant.

Amandaattends Morehead State University, where she is a chemistry major. Amanda has a 3.9 GPA. Outside of working as a Hawkes Ambassador, she plans to join the school’s chemistry club this semester. Her favorite class is Human Anatomy. After she graduates, she plans to get a graduate degree and become a pharmacist.

Kaitlinis a sophomore finance major at the University of Mississippi. Although she is very busy with her studies, demonstrated by her 3.7 GPA, Kaitlin is involved in many organizations throughout campus. Some of her favorites include Alpha Omicron Pi, Associated Student Body, Students Activities Association, and Reformed University Fellowship. This semester she is really enjoying her Business Calculus class. Upon graduating, Kaitlin plans to attend graduate school and become an external business consultant.

Is this the first time you’re using Hawkes for one of your courses? Congratulations! We’re happy you’re here with us!

Check out the quick directions below for setting up your Hawkes account. If you have any questions, you can access our tech support at 1-800-426-9538 Monday through Friday, 8am to 10pm ET, as well as 24/7 chat at chat.hawkeslearning.com.

Congratulations! You’ve just created your Hawkes Learning Account. Remember to log in with the same email and password to access any of the Hawkes Learning courseware. If you forget your password, select I forgot my password! We’ll ask you the security question you set up or help you reset the password.

Enroll in Your Course

Select your INSTRUCTOR and SECTION from the drop-down menus, and select ENROLL.
You are now ready to complete assignments for this course.

Navigate Your Course

Navigation Toolbar contains links to important tools such as your grades, eBooks, the notifications center, and messages.

Complete Your Homework

Each lesson involves three phases: Learn, Practice, and Certify. Use Learn and Practice to learn the concepts and work out practice problems. When you feel confident in the material, move to Certify to complete your homework. For additional help, go to https://www.hawkestv.com to watch videos on every lesson.

Have you had students who just didn’t seem to care about class? They may have shown up physically, but they were somewhere else mentally. They barely participated in class discussions, and their writing lacked the effort you tried so hard to encourage them to put forth. How do you combat this apathy?

According to Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, bringing a growth-mindset approach, rather than that of a fixed mindset, to your classroom helps reduce apathy in your students.

Growth vs. fixed mindsets

People with a fixed mindset think their traits are static. They “have a certain amount of brains and talent and nothing can change that…[P]eople in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others” (Dweck). So, students who have fixed mindsets believe they cannot get more intelligent than they already are. If they’ve been a bad student with low grades before, then they assume they’ll continue performing poorly in academic settings because that is how they are. Likewise, if they succeed in school, that success confirms their inherent intelligence and creativity. They strive for success and try to avoid failure at all costs.

People with a growth mindset, however, believe they can learn and practice diligently in order to improve at the task at hand. This type of mindset “thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities” (Popova). Students are less preoccupied with failing and looking unintelligent and more focused on actively learning so they can become stronger in their character, creativity, and intelligence.

Changing the meaning of failure

Implementing a growth-mindset approach in class helps students understand that failure isn’t a terrible mistake that shines a light on their inadequacies. Instead, failure leads to opportunities to learn and get creative.

Risks often scare students with fixed mindsets because risks contain a chance of failing. Encouraging students to break outside of their comfort zones to take academic risks (within reason, of course!) gets them to try their hand at something different and put extra effort into their lessons.

Putting forth effort is nearly half the battle. When they apply their effort to learning something new and challenging themselves, students truly gain insight from the lesson instead of simply gaining a grade.

How Hawkes promotes growth

Hawkes gives students a penalty-free environment for learning. In the Practice mode, students can practice as much as they want to. Certify, the homework mode in the courseware, holds students accountable for learning the material on their own time. They can keep trying Certify as often as they need. If they don’t pass the first time, they don’t get a bad grade. Instead, they get the chance to try again—to get back on the proverbial horse and push themselves to keep learning and understanding the lesson. If they don’t pass Certify, students receive a customized Practice session with the question types they missed. By applying a growth mindset, students can learn from these Practice sessions, get more comfortable with the material and confident in their learning, then take on Certify again. When they pass Certify, they receive 100% full credit for the lesson, another reward for believing they can do it and applying themselves to the goal of truly learning the content.

Before taking an assigned test, students can create their own practice tests. Only they can see these practice tests. Not even instructors have access to this space, so students don’t feel judged by others. Instead of worrying about their performance on this practice assessment, students can ease into the material and allow themselves to explore what they know and what they still need to learn. Students have the option of setting a time limit, and they can also choose to not put a limit on how long they need to complete the questions.

By rewarding students for taking the time to learn the material through unlimited practice questions and customized practice tests, Hawkes’s system encourages students that they can learn and succeed when applying a growth mindset to their lessons.